DevLog #2: Crash Course Vid Response on 3D Graphics

Not all objects are as simple as a cube, therefore a triangle is better to make more complex shapes. Furthermore, three points in space unambiguously define a plane. If three points are made in space, a single plane can be formed. Shapes with multiple vertices are not always guaranteed to create a plane, neither is having two points in space which would create a line. Painter’s Algorithm begins with the background and works up into the foreground. They order the distances and fills in each polygon one by one. Z-Buffering doesn’t require any sorting, rather it cross-checks with the Z-Buffer and its competing polygons in scene. This allows to test for line interesting but also discerning of hierarchies in visibility. The direction the polygons are facing is called the surface normal.

For me, having defined why we use triangles than any other polygons or regular number of points have clarified a lot. It made more sense to why it was more beneficial for later use to utilize triangles to define surfaces even when it could easily be a quad.